(This analysis is a preview of the NASA chapter
in the forthcoming AAAS Report XXX: Research and Development FY
2006, a comprehensive look at the President’s budget for R&D in
FY 2006. This analysis contains revised AAAS estimates of NASA R&D,
different from figures presented in the AAAS Preliminary
Analysis of February 10. This analysis was revised again on March
18. More tables and continually updated supplemental materials on R&D
in the FY 2006 budget can be found on the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
Highlights
- The National Aeronautics
and Space Administration (NASA) continues to face daunting challenges,
even as it receives favored treatment in the federal budget. The total NASA budget of $16.5 billion would be a 1.6 percent increase
after a much larger boost in 2005, but NASA’s R&D would increase
4.6 percent or $508 million in FY 2006 because of money freed up
by the Space Shuttle’s expected return to flight this spring (see Table
II-12).
- While the agency would receive additional resources
for its ambitious plans to finish construction of the International
Space Station, explore the solar system, and develop the technologies
needed for future moon and Mars missions, there would also be tough
budget choices. NASA would cancel
a servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope, and would make steep
cuts to aeronautics research (down 6 percent to $852 million), the
earth sciences portfolio (down 4 percent to $2.1 billion), and biological
and physical research (down 22 percent to $807 million).
- The cuts would
allow for shifts in resources to solar system exploration and R&D
for moon and Mars mission technologies. There would be large boosts
for robotic moon and Mars exploration (up 17 percent to $858 million)
and development of a Crew Exploration Vehicle within a new Constellation
Systems program (up 113 percent to $1.1 billion).
- The International Space Station would receive $1.9
billion, up 10.8 percent, in anticipation of the Space Shuttle’s return
to flight.
NASA R&D in the FY 2006 Budget: More Money, but Tough Choices
In an extremely
tough budget environment of rising deficits, restraints on domestic
spending, and cuts for many programs, the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) would escape the tight funding squeeze facing
other domestic programs in the proposed FY 2006 budget just as it did
in 2005. But the proposed increases for NASA would not be enough to
keep the agency from making tough choices as it juggles a full plate
of high-priority missions along with its traditional R&D programs.
NASA’s total budget of $16.5 billion would be a $260 million or 1.6
percent increase after an $820 million increase in 2005 (see Table
II-12). The additional funds would allow NASA to keep going on grand
new plans for space exploration involving a return to the moon and a
possible human flight to Mars in coming decades, after first returning
the Space Shuttle to flight this spring and using the Shuttle to finish
construction of the International Space Station. The 2006 budget would
once again restructure NASA’s budget accounts, from 7 enterprises in
two major budget accounts to 4 directorates in two major accounts (all
amounts in Table II-12 are adjusted for
comparability to reflect the proposed new structure).
NASA’s R&D (two-thirds of the agency’s budget) would total $11.5 billion,
a 4.6 percent or $508 million increase. R&D funding would grow
faster than the total NASA budget because the agency anticipates a reduction
in the non-R&D Space Shuttle program from a record $4.7 billion
funding level this year down to $4.5 billion next year after the Shuttle
returns to flight.
Although the moon and Mars missions are the attention-getting
centerpiece of NASA’s plans, two longstanding programs take up most
of the agency’s resources this year and next year. The non-R&D Space
Shuttle program takes up a record-breaking $4.7 billion this year, up
even from the $4.3 billion 2005 appropriation of three months ago after
NASA shifted funds from other programs to meet escalating safety costs
as the Shuttle prepares to return to flight this spring, more than two
years after being grounded in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster.
With the Shuttle safely back in space, the current proposal is to trim
the program’s budget down to $4.5 billion in FY 2006, which would still
be high in historical terms.
Figure 1. (click
on the image for PDF)
The budget would increase funding
for the International Space Station by $180 million or 11 percent to $1.9
billion next year. The Station is now essentially in maintenance mode of two
astronauts supplied by Russian spacecraft, with construction activities in
limbo indefinitely until the Space Shuttle resumes its role of carrying Station
components into orbit. After shrinking to $1.4 billion last year, the FY 2005
plan envisions Space Station construction resuming at $1.7 billion after the
Shuttle returns to flight, and proceeding full speed ahead next year.
With these two
big-ticket current programs provided for, the
FY 2006 budget would also provide funds for moon-and-Mars programs,
especially within the Exploration Systems (ES) account. In a newly
organized budget structure, NASA would create the Constellation Systems
program as the focal point for R&D efforts in the space flight technologies
needed to return humans to the moon and then onward to Mars. From $526
million this year, Constellation Systems funding would more than double
to $1.1 billion, primarily for R&D on the Crew Exploration Vehicle
(CEV), a project to develop a next-generation spacecraft capable of
taking humans beyond low-Earth orbit. The first demonstration flights
are currently planned for 2008. Exploration Systems R&T (research
and technology) would surge 27 percent to $919 million for R&D to
meet the technical challenges lying ahead for the moon and Mars missions.
At the same time, the Prometheus Nuclear Systems and Technology program
to develop new power and propulsion technologies based on nuclear power
for future NASA missions, a key need if NASA is to launch spacecraft
to the Moon and beyond, would see its funding decline 26 percent to
$320 million in a restructuring of program milestones. Funding for the
Mars and Lunar Exploration programs for robotic exploration would total
$858 million in combined funding, up 17 percent from this year to build
on recent successes of the headline-grabbing Mars rovers and to gear
up for a 2008 robotic mission to the moon.
NASA’s ambitious
plans would not all fit into its budget even with an increase, necessitating
tough budget choices. To make ends meet, NASA would cancel a servicing
mission for the Hubble Space Telescope, and would make steep cuts to
aeronautics research, the earth sciences portfolio, and biological and
physical research. The most controversial cut would be the Hubble
Space Telescope. NASA attracted strong criticism last year for canceling
a planned shuttle servicing mission to extend the life of the Hubble,
instead focusing on robotic servicing. Congress spoke up in its FY 2005
NASA appropriation by allocating $291 million for Hubble, including
funding a servicing mission, but the current 2005 NASA plan shows $216
million. In the FY 2006 budget, NASA would cancel any servicing mission,
whether robotic or human, and would instead allocate just $191 million
for Hubble operations and a robotic mission to deorbit
the telescope when it reaches the end of its current useful life. At
the same time, the next-generation James Webb Space Telescope scheduled
for launch in 2011 would receive $372 million, an increase of $60 million.
While new technologies in Exploration Systems would receive boosts,
NASA’s support of biological and physical research would be restructured
to focus on future space mission needs into a Human Systems R&T
program and would fall 20 percent down to $807 million. While
the ‘S’ in NASA would continue to grow, the first ‘A’ for aeronautics
research would continue to shrink, falling 5.9 percent to $852 million.
And the newly restructured Earth-Sun System program, taking in the Earth
Science mission and other related programs and forming the core of NASA’s
environmental sciences portfolio, would see its funding fall 4.3 percent
to $2.1 billion. Finally, Education Programs would decline 23 percent
to $167 million because of the proposed elimination of congressional
earmarks.
Impacts of the NASA R&D Portfolio
The proposed increase to NASA’s R&D portfolio in FY
2006 would continue a modest upward trend for the last few years, as
shown in Figure 1. NASA’s R&D funding has just kept pace with inflation
going back to FY 1991, and recent increases have been just barely ahead
of inflation. Although the Bush Administration’s moon and Mars plan
ignited hopes of increasing resources in a time of fiscal austerity,
NASA committed to carrying out its ambitious plans with a budget plan
that would just keep pace with expected inflation over the next decade.
Although inflationary increases are more than most R&D funding agencies
are likely to get in the next few years, NASA’s big plans for the next
few years will require NASA to reshuffle its resources and to meet ambitious
targets for deployment, construction, and then phase-out of the Space
Shuttle and Space Station programs to make room for moon and Mars programs.
Thus, NASA’s R&D funding is likely to stay at this year’s levels
in inflation-adjusted dollars for the foreseeable future, with increases
in priority programs offset by cuts in other areas.
Although much
of NASA’s R&D portfolio funds development and facilities projects
such as the Space Station, NASA is responsible for 10 percent of all
federal support for basic and applied research, with far larger roles
in key fields. Engineering
research makes up the largest part of the NASA portfolio (see Figure
2). NASA funds more than a quarter of total federal support for engineering
research. NASA supplies nearly all the federal support for some engineering
sub-fields such as astronautical engineering and aeronautical engineering. NASA
is the leading federal sponsor of the environmental sciences (oceanography,
atmospheric sciences, geological sciences).
The environmental sciences are a quarter of NASA’s portfolio, but NASA
accounts for a third of total federal support for environmental sciences
research. NASA also invests heavily
in the physical sciences (astronomy, chemistry, and physics). NASA is
the second largest federal sponsor of physical sciences behind the Department
of Energy, and is by far the leading sponsor of astronomy research with
more than 70 percent of the federal total.
Figure 2. (click
on the image for PDF)
- March 9, 2005
(revised March 18)
(More materials on R&D in the FY 2006 budget,
historical data and charts, and more information on AAAS Report XXX: Research and Development FY 2006, can be found on
the AAAS R&D Web site at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd.)
AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program
1200 New York Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 326-6607
www.aaas.org/spp/rd
